Slavery

Author(s):  
Page DuBois

This article addresses the issue of slavery. Where society operates to give cultural shape to biological facts in the case of sexuality, it denies cultural identity or cultural significance to slaves, who become ‘mere’ bodies. Most of the written evidence from Greek antiquity comes from the perspective of slave-owners. People cannot know what ancient Greek slaves might have had to say about their experiences of enslavement. There are various ways to address this matter: one is by using the analogy of slaves from other historical circumstances who did write about such experiences, in the form, for example, of the slave narratives of ante- and post-bellum America. Other strategies for imagining or representing ancient slaves' experience involve extrapolating from silence, supplying the other side of a one-sided dialogue between master and slave.

Author(s):  
Anil Gopi

Food and feast are integral and key components of human cultures across the world. Feasts associated with religious rituals have special social and cultural significance when compared to those in any other festivities or celebrations in people’s life. In this study, an approach is made to comparatively analyze the feasts at religious festivals of two distinctive groups of people, one with a characteristic of simple society and the other of a complex society. The annual feast happening at the hamlets of the Anchunadu Vellalar community in the last days of the calendar year is an occasion that portrays the egalitarian nature of the people. While this feast is restricted within a single community of particular caste affiliation and geographical limitations, the feast associated with the kaliyattam ritual of village goddess in North Malabar is much wider in scope and participation. The enormous feast brings the people in a larger area and exhibits a solidarity that cuts across boundaries of religion, caste and community. Beyond the factors of social solidarity and togetherness, these events also illustrate its divisive characters mainly in terms of social hierarchy and gender. A comparative study of both the two feasts of two different contexts reveals the characteristic features of religious feasts and the value of food and feast in social life and solidarity and also how it acts as a survival of their past and as a tradition.


2009 ◽  
pp. 139-170
Author(s):  
Maurizio Cermel

- The condition of the Rom and Sinti peoples represents very well the contradictions present in European society and the problems that Europe has to tackle if it is to pursue the path of political integration. There are several million people in the Rom and the Sinti population, distributed in small communities all over the continent. Because of their lifestyle and different language and customs, they are in practice denied access to the civil, political and social rights due to other citizens, both in Italy and in the majority of other European countries. This denial of their cultural identity sometimes verges on racial discrimination: as they lie on the margins of civil society, the authorities often treat them in ways that are incompatible with the principles of freedom, equality and solidarity on which today's modern democracies are founded. What the institutions in the various states ought to do, on the other hand, is work together with the Rom and Sinti organisations and with the international organisations to safeguard a cultural identity that enriches Europe as a whole just as much as its national identities do, while at the same time contributing at making these people fully entitled European citizens. Eligio Resta, God and the Majority Award The history of the principle of majority is still a powerful indicator for interpreting contemporary developments in economic democracy and in political democracy. The work by F. Galgano that led to these notes illustrates a line of commentary about the form and the contents of the rule of the majority that is pursued right up to the decline perceived in the present day. Overwhelmed by the crisis afflicting the concept of representation today, the principle of the majority has come back to question us about the space reserved for deliberative democracy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-69
Author(s):  
Ibrahima Sarr

Senegal is a melting pot of several civilizations mainly originated from the West (Europe) and the East (the Arab world). Assuming that language and culture are intrinsically related, the settlement of those people and their status as dominant minority sparked and strengthened the use of their languages in formal domains. In the long ran, as they became domesticated, thus now considered African languages because they have contributed to mold the cultural identity of younger generation, they involve in all linguistic interaction. Arab, in its classical form, remains a symbol of Islam which earns it a certain degree of sacredness. Nevertheless the contact situation with the other languages forced it to crossbreed in special ways like borrowings and interferences. As for the other foreign languages, namely French, English, Spanish, and German at a least extent, they are made to carry the weight of local cultures.


Author(s):  
Christo Lombaard

This contribution is the second in a series on methodology and Biblical Spirituality. In the first article, ‘Biblical spirituality and interdisciplinarity: The discipline at cross-methodological intersection’, the matter was explored in relationship to the broader academic discipline of Spirituality. In this contribution, the focus is narrowed to the more specific aspect of mysticism within Spirituality Studies. It is not rare for Old Testament texts to be understood in relationship to mystical contexts. One the one hand, when Old Testament texts are interpreted from a mystical perspective, the methods with which such interpretations are studied are familiar. The same holds true, on the other hand, if texts in the Old Testament, dating from the Hellenistic period, are identified as mystic. However, African mission history has taught us that the Western interpretative framework, based on ancient Greek philosophical suppositions (most directly the concepts rendered by Plato and Aristotle) and rhetorical orientations, is so strong that it transposes that which it encounters in other cultures into its terms, thus rendering the initial cultural understandings inaccessible. This is precisely the case too with Old Testament texts dating from pre-Hellenistic times, identified as mystic. What are the methodological parameters required to understand such texts on their own terms? In fact, is such an understanding even possible?


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 483-488
Author(s):  
Sara Cipolla

The research work concerns the development in the Italian literature of the French theme of Neuf Preux, and Particularly Took into account a crown of sonnets of nine famous men linked to an alleged cycle of paintings attributed to Giotto's in the palace of Castel Nuovo in Naples. The survey highlighted how in medieval Italian literature, beyond the more or less explicit recovery of the French literary tradition, occupies a prominent place the function that these poems take in the view of the literature of the time. The survey actually shows the two faces of the series of famous heroes, which on one hand is the mouthpiece of the political ideals and civil inspired by the courteous and Roman antiquities, on the other hand appears to be ripe fruit of a didactic poem in which the adherence to the motto of "ut pictura poesis" become as a kind of surface projection of images.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Sarmad Salahuddin ◽  
Beenish Mujahid ◽  
Farah Jamil ◽  
Nasir Javed

Housing is one of the most important needs of mankind to survive. A secure and properly planned house, gives comfort to people using it, keeping them secure from severe environment, un-wanted people and animals. Apart from the human casualties, the other striking and usually most visible effect of natural disaster is majorly the destruction of houses. The loss of houses has a devastating effect on privacy, livelihoods and the dignity of individuals. An effective program for the reconstruction of houses for those affected is critical to ensure restoration of the society’s economy, cultural identity and dignity. For many humanitarian organizations, employing professional construction companies is the most common and quickest way of rebuilding houses in the aftermath of a disaster. However every strategy has its own risks and limitations, but there is a growing awareness being shared among countries to mitigate these situations. This study carefully examines the reconstruction strategies employed in earthquake affected buildings of Kashmir, Pakistan and Gujrat, India. The analysis concludes proper fulfillment of the bye laws for seismic resistant construction and enforcing law of training for laborers and local people in redevelopment of earthquake hit area.


Author(s):  
Lars Albinus

The purpose of the article is to show how the negative dialectics of Adorno gets involved with a concept of myth that is questionable in several respects. First of all, Adorno tries to combine, but rather conflates, two understandings of myth. On the one hand, the concept of myth is defined as the ancient Greek mythos, in which the subject of man is projected on to nature; on the other hand, myth is defined as the backfire of enlightenment, in which self-reflection becomes the blind spot of instrumental reason. Along these lines of argument, Adorno’s interpretation of Homer, which, at any rate, is highly inspiring, attempts to demonstrate that Odysseus is already enlightened in that he keeps the myth at bay in order to gain his self. The point is, as a matter of dialectic necessity, that he just ends up in myth once again, albeit in the second sense, namely by being a victim of his own self-denial. A question that seems to remain unanswered, though, is how the two kinds of myth are related. Further, Adorno draws on a problematic distinction between myth and literature in order to claim that Homer separates himself from the realm of myth. By adopting Adorno’s own game of interpretation, however, it is possible to regard myth as such, including the Homeric one, as being contingently open-ended rather than just a matter of dialectic determination.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 574
Author(s):  
I.D. Mariolakos ◽  
Ε. Manoutsoglou

Mt Olympus is the highest mountain of Greece (2918 m.) and one of the most important and well known locations of the modern world. This is related to its great cultural significance, since the ancient Greeks considered this mountain as the habitat of their Gods, ever since Zeus became the dominant figure of the ancient Greek religion and consequently the protagonist of the cultural regime. Before the generation of Zeus, Olympus was inhabited by the generation of Cronus. In this paper we shall refer to a lesser known mythological reference which, in our opinion, presents similarities to the geotectonic evolution of the wider area of Olympus. According to Apollodorus and other great authors, the God Poseidon and Iphimedia had twin sons, the Aloades, namely Otus and Ephialtes, who showed a tendency to gigantism. When they reached the age of nine, they were about 16 m. tall and 4.5 m. wide. Having then realized their powers, because of their gigantic proportions, they decided to climb Olympus and fight the Gods, exile Zeus and the others, and wed two Goddesses. Otus was to marry Hera and Ephialtes Artemis. But they did not know how to climb such a high mountain, so they decided to construct a “ladder”, by putting mount Ossa on top of mount Olympus and mount Pelion on top of Ossa. This description coincides with the geological and tectonic evolution of the wider Olympus area. But, these complex tectonic processes were completed about 8 – 10 m.a., i.e. millions of years before the appearance of humans, therefore it is impossible that these morphotectonic processes were witnessed by man, so the similarities between the myth of Aloades and the tectonic evolution of the area must be purely coincidental. But are they, or is there more here?


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sukma Nur Ardini

The aim of this paper is to report the observation findings of foreign language beliefs and behaviors among three communities of English speaking communities’ specific of their cultural identity. The study used descriptive qualitative design since the author wants to describe the phenomenon happened in this study. Three English speaking communities were taken as the data; first, Krismit whatsApp group conversation; second, a private whatsApp conversation between two non-native speakers; third, a classroom talk. Those data were taken from the author’s cellphone, then the chats were exported, transcribed and analyzed well through their beliefs and behaviors specific of their cultural identity. The findings of the present study indicate that the awareness of using English pattern in two communities needs to be more highlighted, while the other community revealed the cultural matter in the form of expressions. Therefore, teachers’ and educators’ big effort in decreasing this issue is crucially needed.


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